6 Sex Positions That Are Perfect For When You’re Stuck In A Twin Bed

With Hanukkah upon us and with Christmas on the horizon, many readers may soon be heading home for the holidays. Often, this means a few festive things: an abundance of heavy foods, too much eggnog, and, for those who will be heading home with a significant other in tow, navigating sex within the confines of a twin-sized childhood bed. Sex in a single bed can be a difficult, disjointed, awkward enterprise—but it doesn’t need to be.

A sex educator, producer, and host at SexEdAGoGo.com who goes by “Dirty Lola,” compared the experience to trying to get two bodies on the infamous floating door that saves Rose but not Jack from freezing to death in the icy Atlantic at the end of Titanic. While Rose claimed it was impossible, we all know she probably could have made it work if she really wanted to. “Having sex in a twin bed is kind of like that,” Lola tells Women’s Health.

The key lies in situating yourselves such that you each have room to maneuver without making too much noise—because if you’re sleeping in your childhood bed, chances are, you’re also surrounded by family members who would probably prefer not to awaken to the sound of your squeaking bedsprings in the middle of the night.

“First step: test your bed. Test the bounciness, test how squeaky it is,” Lola says. “Positions where there’s going to be a lot of bouncing, like being on top, would probably not be the best.”

“I would avoid anything that puts you outside of the bed, like standing outside or if you’re bent over the bed,” she added. Not only is that uncomfortable if your 7-year-old cousin comes barging in on you, it’s also loud, Lola explains. “Twin beds aren’t that sturdy usually, so they’re going to move across the floor: you want to avoid anything where you’re putting too much pressure against one side of the bed where it’s going to start moving or rolling. “

Also advisable to avoid? Toys, unless you’re confident the ones you’ve packed are super quiet. “Anything that you bring, the moment you turn it on and you know your mom’s in the other room, is going to sound loud, so so loud,” Lola notes.

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In short, successful and stealthy twin-bed sex is all about choosing low-bounce positions that allow for easy, fluid transitions. Try to remember what your younger self would’ve done in order to get away with sex in high school, Lola recommends: “Just go back to being a teenager and try to be as quiet and inconspicuous as possible.” Here, the best go-to positions for getting busy in tight quarters.

1. SPOON

“I am a big fan of cuddling positions, so like where you’re spooning and one partner is entering from the back,” Lola says. Because it’s low-exertion, spoon sex is great for confined sleeping spaces in crowded houses: The relatively gentle thrusting probably won’t generate too much noise for nosey family members to overhear.

“You definitely fit [in the bed] if you’re doing that one fluid motion, not a lot of bouncing,” Lola explains. “And if somebody happens to burst in, it just looks like you’re lying next to each other.

2. BRACED WOMAN-ON-TOP

For heterosexual couples working with a sturdy headboard and unobtrusive bed springs, woman-on-top positions are good because they keep both bodies in one line, Lola says. The noise quotient is likely to drop yet further if your partner can help brace the bed somewhat: “If he’s sitting up with his back against the headboard and you can ride him that way, do,” Lola instructs. It offers “a little more control and a little less bounce” than if he were lying on his back and you were grinding on top of him, “so it might be quieter than classic woman-on-top.”

3. MODIFIED DOGGY STYLE

For inconspicuous but satisfying sex, Lola recommends lying flat on your belly and letting your partner enter you from behind. “You don’t get the bouncing, but you do get that doggy, from-behind, sort of experience,” she says. So if that’s a position that normally works for you but you’d be afraid to do it at risk of being loud, this modification is key.

4. MISSIONARY

“There are a million things you can do in [missionary], like putting legs up over shoulders—one leg or the other—and again, it avoids too much bouncing,” Lola says.

And while missionary may bore some couples, there is actually one extremely easy adjustment you can make for good PIV (penis-in-vagina) sex in a tiny bed: coital alignment technique, or the CAT. An upgrade on missionary, CAT requires controlled, gentle thrusting that won’t signal to your entire extended family that you and your significant other are upstairs boning away. Simply place a pillow under your lower back and have your partner situate himself on top of you so that your hips are lined up and your upper bodies are pressed together. The shaft of his penis won’t go as deep inside of you as it would in other positions, but this one is more about clitoral stimulation: Have him rock up and down rather than thrust in and out while you keep your legs as close together as possible, either closed or wrapped around his, whatever feels best.

Slow and steady wins the race: While this might feel awkwardly close to what-are-we-doing teenager sex at first—which, recall, can be a good indicator you’re doing twin-bed sex right—it’s a surprisingly solid bet for clitoral orgasm.

5. SIDEWAYS 69

“We always skip over this,” Lola says, “but maybe this is the time to experiment with 69.” It may not be the most natural position to get yourselves into, but coital motion during mutual oral sex is minimal—no rambunctious thrusting or creaking bed frames here—and it promises to be especially innocuous if both of you are lying on your sides.

6. HAND JOB

“I think people just don’t understand the merits of really good hand sex,” Lola explained. “But when you’re like, ‘Ugh, I don’t want to make a lot of noise, how do we do this,’” a good old-fashioned handy is perfect—especially when you’re pleasuring one another at the same time.

“I like handjobs because you don’t mess your makeup up, so if you want a quickie in between [or] right before everybody arrives for dinner,” Lola advised, go back to your teenage roots and have some discreet hand sex.